BUILD A STREAMLINED DATA REFINERY This short paper discusses how organizations can benefit from a Streamlined Data Refinery Architecture, which represents a flexible way to automate delivery of information to large numbers of users for a variety of big data analytics purposes. Type: Whitepaper Product: Data Integration, Big Data Analytics Industry: Government – Fed & Local

Being the leader of a community and making decisions to address social and economic challenges may feel like you’re a gambler rolling the dice. You know you have to place bets with no control over how the dice will fall. The gambler analogy represents the uncertainty facing community decision-makers. Uncertainty is a function of multiple factors, many of which are outside their direct control, such as macroeconomic conditions. Of the many worthy ideas on the table, which will lead to a return on investment in terms of liveability (social capital)…

In times of great uncertainty, one of the most effective qualities of the finance organization is agility. Agility means being able to sync up the pace of internal change with that of the external environment. Facing today’s political, economic, and financial market unpredictability, the onus is on finance to turbocharge its agility. The Hackett Group benchmarks show that top-performing agile companies are four times more likely to improve cost under volatile business conditions. They are three times more likely to make important decisions quickly, and twice as likely to respond…

I’ve been eager for the chance to inject the fashionable word “fraught” into one of my blogs for a while, and a recent conversation about supply chain risk presented the ideal opportunity. During an exclusive roundtable at the SAP Ariba Live 2017 event in Las Vegas entitled “Managing Risk in Your Supplier Engagements,” three experts talked about how companies can prevent the worst from happening in a world fraught with stuff that can go wrong. Their message was that companies can use advanced technologies like machine learning and predictive analytics…

In 2016, the world population surpassed 7.3 billion, meaning the number of people on Earth has doubled in the past 45 years. Furthermore, there’s no end insight to this rapid growth. In fact, it has been calculated that the population is increasing by more than 140 people every minute. This exploding population creates challenges from the perspectives of sustainability and urbanization: The world’s population is outgrowing the available natural resources. If, as predicted, the global population reaches 9.6 billion by 2050, we would, per United Nations figures, require the equivalent of almost three…

Data analytics is rapidly emerging as a key to success in the new digital economy. To capitalize on this opportunity, organizations need to rethink the status quo and invest accordingly. When it comes to organizations and their data analytics journeys, a quote often attributed to Mark Twain seems especially appropriate: “The secret to getting ahead is getting started.” While data analytics is rapidly emerging as a key to business success in the new digitally driven economy, many organizations are just exploring or in the early stages of their data analytics…

Part 5 of the “Road to Digital Transformation” series Over the past year, I have seen an undeniable shift in how small and midsize businesses are investing in advanced technology, which was once considered too expensive, too complicated, and too focused on the large enterprise. The more executives I meet, the more I realize that tech solutions – such as collaboration, e-commerce, talent management, and business intelligence – are helping firms build greater efficiency, productivity, and profitability. The IDC InfoBrief, “The Next Steps in Digital Transformation: How Small and Midsize…

The massive numbers of connected things and the explosion of data generated by connected devices (“things”) has changed the way we do business forever. With the emergence of smart products, assets, and always-on “things,” we now have access to unparalleled amounts of information. This – along with the evolution of Big Data, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and technologies such as blockchain – is enabling us to converge operational and information technologies to make machines smarter and drive end-to-end digital transformation. Every “thing” is connected Today, we live in a…

As we enter the last stage of March Madness (a crazy basketball tournament of 68 college teams competing for the ultimate prize), I was thinking about the amount of data that it generates and how sports management faces a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on data. Whether you’re the head of ticket sales, planning yearly promotional giveaways, or gearing up for the halftime show, you know improving yearly sales is a difficult task. The professional sports industry drove $17.84 billion in gate revenues in North America in 2015 alone. Total revenue sources come from several categories and differ depending on the sport and…